…Music Archive Collection was set up to bring back to life some long lost, out of print classic albums. Albums by artists such as ABBA, Big Country, The Style Council, The Jam and eh – one of Paul’s favourites – Wet Wet Wet.

Back in 2004, ‘A Happy Pocket’ by the Trashcan Sinatras was also given the nod to be re-released – it is a classic after all.

Most of these releases were interactive CD’s. Pop them into your Mac or PC and some additional material was available for you to peruse while listening to the audio. Don’t know what’s wrong with my copy but it disnae work.

It’s a very clever idea and may have been a godsend if you’d been searching for what was once, one of the elusive Trashcan albums. Not so, if you were the band. I can’t imagine they would’ve seen any of the proceeds from the sale of this edition.

I’m sure you know all about this film, but if you don’t (shame on you), here’s a quick synopsis. ‘Spooktime’ is a fifteen minute short film inspired by characters who appear on the album ‘A Happy Pocket’. It was written and conceived by Scottish director, John McFarlane, along with Paolo Hewitt and Tony Crean. The Trashcans provide a musical backdrop to the film which is crammed full of drugs, violence, sex and murder – just a normal night out in Glasgow then.

The cassette also includes the ‘To Sir, With Love’ video, and some copies came with a 6 question contest to “Win a luxury two night stay in Scotland”. Questions included easy ones like ‘Which songs are featured in “Spooktime”?’ to more difficult ones like ‘What was the number plate of the taxi?’.

Until recently, you could view ‘Spooktime’ online at John McFarlane’s website, but it seems to have been removed. Maybe someone doesn’t want you all to see it.

In a world of DVD, Blu-Ray, Super duper hi res HDTV et al, isn’t it great once in a while to dust down the old VCR and watch an old wonky video cassette.

Here we have the Trashcans looking very dapper in their suits – Savile Row I imagine – for the video of their cover of Don Black and Mark London’s ‘To Sir, With Love’ – made famous by fellow Scot, Marie Lawrie.

The promo for this single included – as you well know – snippets from the Trashcans very own blockbuster movie ‘Spooktime’ – a fifteen minute alcadelic trip through Glaswegian low-life.

Although bought in the UK on the day of release, my copy of third album ‘A Happy Pocket’ comes from Germany. This may well have been the norm for labels to manufacturer their CDs overseas (cheap labour) as I have other CDs, Cassettes etc which are made in Europe, but I would have thought a UK release would be made in the UK – or am I being stupid.

The official TCS discography has a separate listing for the UK version – so it does exist. Does it? Surely?

I think I need to lie down.

Update: I finally came across the UK version. A Happy Pocket = An Empty Pocket.

I never liked the design on the CD – could never read the writing – but it’s still my favourite album

Some copies – like this one – had promo information included, although it’s not a promo CD.